Today I was reminded that old online chats offered context awareness for the people online: you knew you won't be a bother to a friend who has a smiley flower as a status; and you knew you might not be getting a quick reply from someone who's Away.

Today I don't even know if my friends are online or not. The messenger apps make the assumption that everyone is online, and if not, they will receive a push notification, and will reply to you as soon as possible. But this assumption is barely true. I bet it makes lives harder, especially for ND people

(Edited for a pixel-perfect screenshot)

Hello youths, it is your queer auntie Abadidea back with the advice

I was alerted to a 19yo autistic person who heard "autistic people tend to form their first successful long-term relationship around 30" and concluded that there is then no point to even trying until they're 30. I don't know where this statistic came from or how accurate it is, but that's a bit beside the point, because:

Very few people get into a successful long-term relationship on their very first try. The usual way of things is that two well-meaning young people fall in love and then something goes painfully, messily wrong four months in and they both LEARN something about how to conduct themselves and how to deal with others. Repeat two or three more times until two people who have developed some emotional maturity fall in love. It may take autistic people a little longer on average to iron out the kinks, but they'll get there!

If you decide "I won't even try until I'm 30 because the math says that's when it works out," what's going to happen is that you're going to be 30 with the emotional maturity of a wildly unbalanced 18yo and all the other 30yos are going to be like... yeah, not touching that with a 10-foot pole.

Successful relationships come from practice, not from waiting for the Maturity Fairy to bless you!

#autism #relationships #advice #actuallyautistic